01:33 PM November 20, 2005 | Comments (2)
Teaching Harp
Well, I did something this weekend. I taught a class on how to play the harp. One of my friends is in charge of scheduling the Youth Classes for this quarterly event so I thought I'd volunteer and help out.
It was at an SCA event called RUM and I volunteered to teach 6 kids some of the basics. I had 3 harps to work with so I had to limit the class size in order to have hands-on time for each child.
What was supposed to be a youth class limited to 6 kids ended up having 2 kids and 8 adults — 2 of whom brought their own harps so at least I could keep the hand-on ratio at 2:1. Apparently the way my class was listed in the printed version of the event class schedule it didn't indicate clearly that it was a youth class.
We covered the basics — different styles and sizes of harps, a miniscule amount of music theory, string relationship to notes, different ways to hold a lap harp, how to correctly position your fingers on the strings, placing a series of notes, opening and closing finger/hand techniques, and in the end we learned a simple song — Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
I found out a few things:
- I liked doing it.
- I liked seeing a group of people excited about trying to play the harp (even if most won't pursue it further).
- I must have explained it well as most people were using good hand position for beginners.
- I liked promoting the harp.
- People liked the class — my friend told me they came up to her and asked if I'd be teaching again at other events.
- Teaching adults didn't matter, I was still comfortable with the process and their desire to learn. I was wrong in thinking the kids would be more open.
- Most importantly — one hour is not enough time to cover the material. I kept it short and sweet on the lecture part but even so, with hands-on instruction, we only had time to learn half of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star — hope Mozart isn't turning over in his grave!
Happy Harping!
